31. Chapter 31 #2
Another male hurries in. This one built like the embodiment of whatever the shitty general used to me. Although he’s not in military uniform. No, he's… a doctor.
“No, I gave her the maximum safe dose. I had not known she would be pregnant, sir.”
“A surprise for us all!” the general booms, his wings doing the thing again as something slams the closed nose of the ship.
It jiggles my boobs and I stifle a giggle.
“Perhaps the child is fighting off what we have given her. I cannot risk—"
The general cuts him off. “Yes, yes, you may go.”
The other male casts me an uneasy look before leaving. His wings flaring too as another crash hits the nose. The general startles before shouting, “Man, your positions!”
I laugh wildly because if I were a betting woman, I’d say that’s my fucking mate. My high ass pats my belly as I drag myself out of the way. “Dada is here, creepy baby.”
The fear is kind of gone? It's coming in bursts.
Burts?
Spurts.
“Shut up,” the general hisses seconds before the nose is punctured by two shimmering blades. “Fall back! Pull out of the dome and warp now!”
“Sir, we have males in the skies we can’t—"
“DO IT NOW!” the general roars as the metal of the nose groans, the shimmering blades nothing more than handholds as it’s peeled apart.
The general backtracks in the small military vessel. Heading for a pod on the side.
I kick out my heavy leg, tripping him just as the nose blows open, revealing death incarnate.
And his best friend.
Blasters open up just as Melion forms a barrier absorbing each burst of energy. It seems to embolden him as he zips forward, one of the Riarthians disappearing in a tornado of carnage. I avert my eyes, not wanting to see that again.
When my mate’s attention finds me, my heart stills.
Sor’en is not quite himself, not quite the other, but what he is…
is a reckoning. It occurs to me in that moment as I watch him launch himself forward, instantly killing three other males, that what the general said is true.
I have no doubt that Sor’en is a murderer.
That I don’t really care.
I lie there in a boneless heap as they both disappear into the pilot's cabin. My mind slow to catch up as I watch Sor’en stab at the center controls right below where the fuselage lives. My pulse spikes. “Hey, that’s full of—"
An explosion rocks the ship just as the pod fails to deploy fully, swinging free from its slot before crashing into the side of the ship, the General inside.
My drug-addled brain only connects then, as the ship cants violently upward, that we have left the dome and we’re hurling toward the planet's atmosphere. Air thins in my lungs as my hands scramble for purchase. The nose of the ship, which apparently isn’t a nose at all but the back, is a gaping maw for the ground below, and I’m slipping.
Four more Riarthians swoop through the open maw, narrowly missing blowing right through me.
My scream gets lost in the sounds of fighting and carnage.
Finally wrenching my heavy head up just enough to see Sor’en be slammed into the side of the vessel by the only remaining male.
His head hits roughly, but his hands slam up, cupping the male on either side of his head. I look away once his eyes burst.
The other bodies, though, too dead to hold on, start slipping too. A pair of large boots grows closer and closer to my face when a shadow takes them.
My fingers are growing numb, my thoughts sluggish.
I scream as Sor’en stands there, his chest heaving, eyes wild on the bouncing pod still unable to release its tether on the ship.
The male inside seems just as sick as he does panicked.
The tether releases with a whirling sound just as I feel the press of something hard on my hand.
My only hold on the ship, to keep me from falling to my death, is a few strands of torn netting as we cant vertically.
My eyes widen as Sor’en grips something overhead, keeping himself upright. Crying out in fear as he steps on my fingers, not hard, but enough to make his meaning clear. “Let go!” he roars over the damaged engine.
The ship is about to blow.
I shake my head, a sob clogging my throat. “I’ll fall!”
“Let go, Hue! Now!”
My head snaps toward the opening, fear clawing at my chest as my eyes flutter with the effect of the drugs.
Come on, creepy baby, keep me awake, please.
The whirling of the engine rises to a fever pitch, but it’s a single click, such a quiet, innocuous sound that detonates the vessel holding us. The next few moments pass like one of those horrible slow-motion nightmares.
Melion swirls tightly around my mate as if he's being tunneled over every inch of his flesh, coating him in his shadows as a hot flash meets my skin. It forms like an armor as Sor’en roars, his finger pointed as if to fling his companion at me. “Melion, go!”
The shadow creature hits me like a burst of hot air as I fall.
But not for long.
The last thing I see before the drugs take me and darkness sets in, whether it's from sleep or Melion shadows swallowing me whole, is the ship burst above our heads.